


a hero's secret.

by Waya_Rainwater_1



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-18 01:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waya_Rainwater_1/pseuds/Waya_Rainwater_1
Summary: The villagers haven't let Naruto eat since he was five, he's starving. He doesn't want his friends to find out but one day there's an unbearable pain in Naruto's stomach that won't go away. He's forced to yell for help. will his friends help him? will they hangout with him anymore? or will they be so angry with him that he has to leave in search of a new home and new friends? He hopes that they will keep accepting him as their friend, he wants to keep his friends but is too afraid to ask for help.





	1. Chapter 1

Naruto was used to his life. Sure he got tormented everytime he was alone but he was used to it. Naruto was an outcast in his own village, he knew that, he knew his friends knew that, but he was used to it… most of the time. Sometimes Naruto wishes things could be different, he wishes he weren’t such an outcast. Not to mention he was starving. Naruto was literally starving, like as in the restaurants wouldn’t let him order and the markets wouldn’t sell him any food. Naruto was getting weaker everyday he didn’t eat. His torso, chest, and back were to skinny you could almost mistake him for a walking skeleton. Usually Naruto dug something out of the trash late at night so his tormentors wouldn’t see him. Naruto hadn’t eaten anything decent since he was five, after that people just got angry with him for no reason. No, Naruto knew the reason. It was because he had the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him. 

It was late at night and he was hanging out with Sakura, Sasuke, Choji, and Rock lee. As usual he was lost in his thoughts and didn’t hear the question that Sakura had asked.

“... okay?” 

“Hm? What?” Naruto wondered, slightly embarrassed by getting so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard the simplest question.

“Naruto you need to stop getting distracted, I asked you if you’re okay” Sakura stated with a bit of annoyance filling her voice. 

“Oh, yeah I’m alright. Just lost in my thoughts” he declared hoping to avoid any suspicion. Sasuke eyed him suspiciously anyway then looked away. 

“You think too much dobe” Sasuke told him. Naruto chuckled at that. They kept walking for a little while. Naruto stayed a little behind so that his friends wouldn’t see garbage being chucked at him every once in a while. 

“Naruto, you’re going so slow! Try to keep up!” Sakura scolded him. He picked up the pace a little but still kept back a few feet away. Then out of nowhere an old toaster hit him in the back of the head. Naruto winced in pain and rubbed the spot where it had hit him.

“Naruto, are you okay?” Rock lee asked with concern. 

“Oops my bad, sorry!” A lady said sarcastically. 

“I’m alright, it’s okay miss. No harm done, probably just a bruise but other than that I’m fine. Here’s your toaster back” he says then picks up the abandon toaster and handed it back to the woman with a smile. He walked away after giving it back. His friends looked surprised and so did the lady. 

“Naruto! You just walked away from that? Didn’t you see that the lady-” Sakura began but Sasuke cut her off.

“Sakura! Shut up” he demanded. She shut her mouth from saying anymore. 

“It’s okay, she has a right to free speech. She can say whatever she wants” Naruto told them with a smile. He didn’t need to look at them to know that they were in shock from his words. Naruto kept walking. 

**‘Hey kit, why didn’t you pummel that lady? She totally deserved it!’** Kyuubi demanded. 

_ ‘I didn’t want to hurt her, besides if Sakura saw my head she would insist that I go to the hospital so the doctors could check for further injuries and that would result in them seeing that I haven’t been eating regularly. I don’t want to worry them’  _ Naruto mentally scolded him and he remained silent. 

Half an hour later Naruto left in search of food. He found half a sandwich in a garbage can, he snuck an abandon ramen bowl from the counter at ichiraku’s ramen and returned it once he was done. The cook didn’t suspect a thing as Naruto put the bowl back on the counter, but that may have been because the cook had his back turned the entire time. After he ate that much he was still hungry but he once again ignored his hunger and walked through out the village. Naruto spotted Shikamaru lying beneath a tree with his eyes closed. ‘ _ Probably sleeping _ ’ Naruto thought. He smiled and walked towards a restaurant that Choji and his friends were at.  Naruto sat down a few booths away from them. A waitress came over and glared at him.

“You’re not welcome here! When are you ever going to get that through your skull!?” she demanded angrily. Naruto frowned for a second but he was used to this treatment. He smiled after the second had passed and laid some money out on the table. 

“I’ll pay for them, besides, they probably blew most of their money on snacks. Bye” Naruto said kindly and walked out of the restaurant. He felt the eyes of almost everyone in the restaurant burning into his back as he fled. Suddenly there was a huge pain in his stomach. He grimaced and kept walking. After a while the pain wasn’t getting any better, if anything it was getting even  more unbearable. 

**‘Kit, you need to get to a hospital, like NOW!”** Kyuubi shouted in Naruto’s mind. 

_ ‘I’ll be fine Kyu, I just need to stop for a second’  _ Naruto thought and sat down against a wall. The pain was even worse now. Naruto grunted in pain as he stood up a few minutes later. He walked a few feet then his legs gave out beneath him. He cried out in pain as he hit the ground, the pain was like he was getting stabbed repeatedly through his torso with a very large and very sharp blade. Naruto didn’t want to get up, no, more like he  _ couldn’t _ get up. Naruto knew no one around him was going to help so he did the last thing he ever wanted to do. He spotted Rock lee walking by, he was only at least twenty feet away. The pain was so unbearable he couldn’t stand it anymore, he needed to scream or cry or do anything to get someone to notice him, but of course Naruto had to be stubborn. He didn’t want his friends to find out about his ‘diet’. Despite the pain Naruto got up and tried to put on a brave and happy face for his friend. 

“Hey Lee” Naruto greeted him with a smile and Rock lee smiled back at him.

“Hello Naruto! I was just going to go get some ramen, would you like to join me?” Rock lee asked gleefully. 

“Sure, but I’ve got to get home after. I’m kind of tired.” Naruto told him. The pain was still unbearable but he decided to try to ignore it until he got home. Even though he and Rock lee were going to get some ramen he had knew that Ichiraku wasn’t going to accept him this time or any other time, but he thought that he’d go with his friend anyway just to make him happy. 

“Hey Rock lee! How are ya today?” Ichiraku asked with a smile. 

“I am fine, Naruto and I are going to have some ramen!” Rock lee informed him and sat down at a stool. Naruto hesitated a minute because Ichiraku was glaring at him but Naruto sat down carefully because of his stomach. Ichiraku set down two bowls full of ramen but Naruto had less than Rock lee. Naruto didn’t mind, Rock lee stared at Naruto as Naruto ate slowly. Naruto wanted to savor the flavor of actual food because he knew he would probably not eat anything like it for a long time. Ichiraku stared at him patiently as if waiting for Naruto to find a flaw in the cooking. He did not, in fact it was the only delicious thing he ever had since he was five. 

“How is it Naruto?” Ichiraku demanded. 

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in a long time” Naruto said kindly with a smile as he looked at the now empty bowl. Rock lee looked confused for a minute then smiled at him. Ichiraku’s burning stare softened a bit. 

“Thank you for the food, here I’ll pay for the both of us” NAruto said and handed Ichiraku the money to pay for the meals. 

“Hey wait, you gave me too much!” Ichiraku shouted to him. 

“Keep it, you work so hard all day over that stove that you earned it. That’s just a token of my thanks, I’d better get home. I’m getting a little tired” Naruto shouted back. Rock lee and  Ichiraku looked shocked. Naruto smiled at them both and walked home. After eating the ramen he’d been given the pain started to go down some but only a little. As soon as Naruto got home he laid down on his bed and drifted off into peaceful sleep. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_ “Naruto, you idiot! We would never want a weak guy like you on our team” Sakura’s voice snarled. _

_ “You are so ignorant! Did you really think we could ever like you?” Rock lee taunted _

_ “Such a waste of space…” someone said.  _

_ “Monster…” another shouted _

_ “Loser…”  _

_ “Freak!” _

_ “Could’ve saved us…” _

_ “Could’ve helped us…” _

_ “Unfit to be Hokage…”  _

_ “The friendless, idiotic boy…”  _

_ “Just makes the team weak” _

_ “Could’ve made us stronger!”  _

_ Naruto was scared, he was drowning in insults. Images of his former team flashed before him. Images of them brutally murdered. Images of the village in complete destruction, surrounded by flames. Naruto standing in the middle of it all. There was one thing different about him though. He was a demon, smiling like a maniac.  _

 

Naruto opened his eyes and he shot forward, gasping for breath, tears trailing along his cheeks. 

“Just a nightmare, it was all just a nightmare. Get ahold of yourself Naruto, that’s never going to happen to us. We will never be that.” Naruto told himself and Kyuubi then pulled the curtain open. It was still dark out. Naruto looked down at his alarm clock,  _ 4:32 a.m. _ , he didn’t want to go back to sleep in fear of having a nightmare again. He got up and looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t the demon in his dream, he wasn’t smiling like a maniac. Naruto stared at himself in the mirror, he was skinny, too skinny. People would mistake him for a walking skeleton. Naruto looked away and decided he should go to the bath house and get himself clean. He took a fresh shirt with him and some freshly washed pants along with other things like underwear, socks, his jacket and his shoes. Naruto had fallen asleep in the clothes he wore the day before so he didn’t need to get dressed. He put his things in a bag and made his way to the bath house. 

  
  


Once he got there he was relieved that no one was there, no one would be there that early in the morning anyway but he was still relieved. Naruto stripped of his clothes and put them in a locker that was close to one of the bath tubs. The water was warm when he got in. Naruto sighed in content at how relaxing it was. A few seconds later he heard someone’s footsteps. He sank  lower into the bath until the water was up to his shoulders, the bubbles hid the rest of his body. He heard the rustle of clothes then someone was getting into the water. It was Choji, he yelped when he saw Naruto. 

“Naruto? What are you doing here?” he demanded. 

“I always wash up either in the morning or at night. There’s a lot less people here when I do, sometimes none at all” Naruto informed him. 

“How long have you been in here?” Choji wonders with curiosity.

“I just got here a few seconds ago before you” Naruto tells him and hears a bag rustle, he smelled food. ‘ _ Of course Choji brought snacks to the bath house, he never goes anywhere without something to eat’  _ Naruto thought with a little envy. Naruto stays in the tub for a little while longer, at least just until Choji leaves. Choji doesn’t leave for a long time and Naruto’s fingers are starting to prune. Naruto wants Choji to leave so he can get out of the tub before more people come and risk him showing them his skinny, skeleton like torso. 

**‘Kit, maybe you should just get it over with. You can’t keep this a secret for much longer, they will find out eventually’** Kyuubi told him. Naruto thought about it for a second then sighed. 

“I’ll see you later Choji, I need to go start training” Naruto said and started to get out then heard Choji gasp. 

“Holy shit! Y-you… Naruto, what happened to you? You’re like a skeleton!” Choji shouted. Naruto smiled softly and said to him, “It’s not as bad as it looks Choji, I’m fine. I just need to… get out more, really I’m fine.” Choji looked like he really doubted that. Naruto got dressed and headed out after giving Choji a friendly wave with a smile. Naruto walked to the training area and started with his shadow clone jutsu and summoning jutsu. Soon he was too tired but kept at it.

A few hours later he stopped training and sat down to rest, mostly because his stomach pain was back again.  _ ‘Maybe Ichiraku will let me eat there today’ _ Naruto thought and got up to go to Ichiraku’s Ramen. Once he got there he spotted some of his friends around Choji at a sushi place across the street. He wanted to avoid them if they heard about what Choji saw in the bath house that morning. 

“Hey there Naruto! How are you today?” Ichiraku said to him.

“I’m fine Ichiraku, how are you this morning?” Naruto asked with a smile. 

“I’m alright, here, I’m sorry for being a stubborn old man all these years, have some ramen.” Ichiraku ordered him and handed out a bowl of ramen for Naruto which Naruto took gratefully.

“Thank you Ichiraku, it’s alright you haven’t been stubborn, just careful.” Naruto told him. Ichiraku smiled at him kindly and Naruto ate the ramen he’d been given. The pain in his stomach eased a little more but only a little. 

“Naruto! Explain why Choji is telling us that you almost look like a skeleton, NOW!” Sakura demanded with a lot of venom and anger in her voice. 

“Sakura, I-”

“No excuses Naruto, just explain!” Sakura shouted. Naruto smiled softly at her. His friends were surrounding him now. 

“I-I have to get home and clean up right now! You know, spring cleaning and stuff like that!” Naruto said quickly then sprinted to his apartment. His friends were only a few yards behind him. Once Naruto got to his apartment he shut the door and locked it. He needed to meditate to clear his mind. 

**‘Kit, you know you can’t avoid them forever, you need to tell them. You know they’re right outside right now, right?’** Kyuubi informed him

_ ‘I know, I know, I just want to tell them when I’m ready. I don’t want them to force me to tell them, I just need Sakura to understand that she can’t always get what she wants.’  _ Naruto told him. 

**_BANG BANG!_ ** Someone was knockin on the door.

“Naruto Uzumaki, let us in right now!” Sakura shouted. Naruto thought this was funny and decided to have a little fun by acting out a nursery rhyme and making it a password to get into his house if it was his friends.

“Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!” he giggled. 

**‘This is very immature but I think this will be fun!’** Kyuubi laughed in his mind. He heard someone say that they knew this one. 

“Then I'll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!” Choji stated happily. 

“Password excepted!” Naruto shouted and unlocked the door. His friends came rushing in the apartment.

“A nursery rhyme, really Naruto?” Kiba asked with a hint of annoyance. Naruto smiled then sat down on his couch. 

“Naruto, you need to tell them what’s happening to you” Choji told him. 

“Choji, like I said it’s not as bad as it looks” Naruto said. 

“Take off your shirt and show them! Show them what I saw!” Choji ordered him. Naruto sighed and removed his jacket then hesitated with his shirt. 

“Naruto” Choji said in a warning tone. Naruto sighed again then lifted his shirt over his head. His friends turned pale. Rock lee passed out along with Ino, Sasuke and Sakura stood there gaping in horror along with Kiba and Shikamaru. 

“See, I told you!” Choji shouted at them. Naruto walked over to his kitchen and sat down at a table. 

“Naruto, what happened to you?” Sasuke demanded softly. 

“It doesn’t matter, just a little weight loss is all” Naruto said calmly.

“Just a little? Naruto you look like a freaking skeleton!” Kiba shouted. Sasuke eyed Naruto suspiciously.

“Naruto, how much have you been eating?” he asked with a hint of curiosity. 

“W-well I’ve been eating as much as anyone else does” he lied. 

“Naruto, no you haven’t or else you wouldn’t be that skinny” Sakura stated sounding like a mother hen. Suddenly the pain in his stomach started getting unbearable again. Naruto winced for a second then grimaced. Ino and Rock lee came to a few seconds later.

“Ino, can you transfer your mind to Naruto’s for a minute and tell us if he feels any pain?” Sasuke asked. 

“Yeah, hold on a second” Ino said. Naruto didn’t want her to do her mind transfer jutsu, he took a step back  and spoke, “Wait, no!” but it was too late. 

“Mind Transfer Jutsu!” Ino shouted and he wasn’t in control of his body anymore. She screamed out in pain and he felt her pull her mind back out of his. She fell to the floor and wrapped her arms around her stomach. Everyone stared at her in surprise then looked to Naruto for an explanation. Naruto put a shirt back on and ran out of the apartment. 


	3. Chapter 3

He ran and ran until he thought the coast was clear. He couldn’t see or hear any of his friends that had been in the apartment. 

“Naruto” Kankuro said and Naruto jumped at the sound of his voice. 

“What’s up? Gaara and I were just about to go get something to eat, want to join us?” Kankuro asked with a hint of a smile. Gaara’s brow furrowed and he looked Naruto up and down suspiciously. 

“Um, sure.” Naruto told them with a smile. The pain sharpened even more and his eyes widened and he fell to the ground. His vision swam as blurry figures crouched next to him saying things with concern. He couldn’t hear them all that well because his ears were ringing. He blacked out a minute later. 

When he woke up he was in the hospital and some of his friends were talking to the doctor in the hall. He could hear what the doctor was saying, as if he were right next to Naruto. His vision was blurry but his hearing was okay, it wasn’t ringing anymore. He felt numb. There was a basket of cookies and other types of food next to his bed. He tried to sit up but was met with a massive headache. 

“Oww, my head” he said weakly and laid back down. His friends were in the hallway. The girls were crying and the boys were fuming with anger. He saw Gaara was closest to the door. He looked at Choji and he was holding a bag of chips at his side. Naruto tried to sit up one more time and was successful (even though he still had a headache). 

“Naruto!” Sakura shouted and hugged him with bone crushing effort. Naruto winced at her voice because he found out that his ears were not the same. She sounded like a school bell went off right in his ear. 

“Oww! Shit Sakura, no need to scream!” he said as he covered his ears. Sakura looked confused for a minute until the doctor spoke up.

“That would be another side effect. Since He has the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him he has developed bionic hearing. But he’s not going to actually turn into the fox, he’s just going to have the qualities of the fox. Such as hearing, extra speed, quick thinking, reflexes, and strength.” the doctor informed them.  They all gaped at him. “And since he hasn’t eaten very much his whole life it only makes sense that he’s that skinny. The pain he felt was only part of the process in which is going to make him gain his new found abilities.” the doctor continued. 


End file.
